Sherman Ampey is so excited, so thrilled, he tells everyone he meets back home in Michigan about catching a Homer Jackpot Halibut Derby tagged halibut during his summer fishing trip to the Kenai Peninsula.

“I can’t believe it,” he said. “I can’t believe I’m even in the running for something like this.”

Another 29 anglers are also in the running for the derby’s prizes, marking a banner year for tagged fish caught, said Jim Lavrakas, Homer Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Center executive director.

Kenai Community Library Director Mary Jo Joiner is so frustrated every time it happens she can explain her anger best in a medieval curse:

“For him that stealeth a book from this library, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted,” reads the Monastery of San Pedro’s Curse Against Book Stealers, a copy of which Joiner has in her office.

Les Bradley pointed with a pencil to all the red dots on the project map.

The dots mark trees, and all marked trees in front of his and his wife, Susan Bradley’s Float Plane Road home are at least 10 feet shorter.

From their second-story windows, the Bradley’s now have a nearly unobstructed view of the Kenai Municipal Airport tarmac, Susan said.

The cut trees are the result of the Kenai Municipal Airport obstruction tree removal project. The project, which is slated to end Sept. 30, will cut almost 2,000 trees jutting into airport’s flight path.

In Kenai’s October election, two candidates are running for mayor and three are running for two open seats on the city council.

Bob Molloy, a nearly eight-year running city council member, is competing with incumbent Pat Porter for mayor. Porter is completing her third three-year term as mayor.

Mark Schrag, Terry Bookey and Brian Gabriel Sr. are competing for the two council seats. Schrag filed the ballot proposition calling to repeal the city’s recently approved comprehensive plan. Both Bookey and Gabriel are incumbents.

Begich on Friday wrote Sodexo USA President and CEO George Chavel asking that the corporation serve Alaska seafood not certified through the Marine Stewardship Council. In late June, Begich made the same request of Wal-mart Stores Inc. CEO Michael Duke.